Aug. 2, 2018 — Chaos in Columbus

Yesterday, Ohio State University put its head football coach, Urban Meyer, on administrative leave due to a scandal having to do with his assistant football coach, Zach Smith. The university is investigating what the Buckeyes coaches, their wives and support staff knew and, perhaps more important, when they knew about the domestic incidents between Smith and his ex-wife, Courtney.

This has made news because of Meyer’s success on the field as well as the fact that he is the state’s highest-paid public employee, at more than $5 million per year.

But there’s another sporting scandal at Ohio State, one which is flying under the radar, involving the wrestling team and former team doctor Dr. Richard Strauss. Over the course of decades, Strauss allegedly molested student-athletes in the guise of medical examinations.

Strauss is not able to answer for his crime; he committed suicide in 2005. But, as in the Meyer affair, there are questions about what Buckeyes wrestling coaches knew, and when they knew it.

And one of the people receiving a lot of scrutiny is Jim Jordan, a former coach who is now on the powerful Judiciary and Oversight Committees of the House of Representatives. It’s now coming to light that alumni of the wrestling program are being contacted in an attempt to get them to recant their stories, which is, potentially, witness-tampering.

These events are unrelated in their scope, but it kind of reminds you of the scandal-plagued Louisville athletics administration, which had to reform after numerous scandals. And, it does not cast the best light on the Ohio State University’s athletics department.